Why is 3rd class a thing?

My understanding is that if you get a 3rd class degree it isn't going to aid your career progression all too much as any 'degree-entry' jobs normally look for a 2:1 up.

Why are third class degrees a thing then? I have friends who struggled enough after getting a 2:2.

Why should anyone who only gets 40% have a degree (i.e. having not met requirements for that level of study for the majority of the course), surely that diminishes the value of one? Is it because of this that people see Masters degree grading more valuable as its pass (2:2), merit (2:1), distinction (1)?

It still represents learning and life experience, there’s always a bell curve of academic performance. It can also denote you didn’t make quite the right choice of course. While it probably doesn’t help with job hunting once you have that first job it becomes largely an irrelevance. Plenty of successful people with 3rds or indeed with no degree.

My understanding is that if you get a 3rd class degree it isn't going to aid your career progression all too much as any 'degree-entry' jobs normally look for a 2:1 up.

Why are third class degrees a thing then? I have friends who struggled enough after getting a 2:2.

Why should anyone who only gets 40% have a degree (i.e. having not met requirements for that level of study for the majority of the course), surely that diminishes the value of one? Is it because of this that people see Masters degree grading more valuable as its pass (2:2), merit (2:1), distinction (1)?

Tradition. I believe 3rd classes werent as redundant before grade inflation.
Your last paragraph doesnt make sense.

Its very rare now due to massive grade inflation, but that was not always the case.

Having literally two grades for 80% of degrees - 2.1 or 1st - is clearly stupid.

I note you posted anonymously , probably becasue you know full well that the way NQF4-6 level work is graded in the UK does not reflect your assertions of 'not meeting the requirements for that level of study' arguably 3rd indicates exactly that that the study has 'met the requirements' but has not exceeded them / demonstrated a greater depth of knowledge than is required.

Last paragraph - poorly structured by myself. What I mean is, to obtain a 3rd class degree you need to pass 40% of the course... why does that allow someone to get the qualification when they didn't pass a majority/at least 50% like with a 2:2.

I guess it's kind of like how we have D and E grades at a-level/Pass grade at BTEC. Even though almost no uni or job would consider these 'good' grades or an actual 'pass' even, but we still have them to show that they're not TOTALLY useless at that subject, and do have some knowledge.

So I would say a 3rd is the equivalent of getting a D/E at a-level. You still kind of understand some aspects of the subject, but not as well as you could. An ord degree (so below 40% in 3rd year) is kind of like a U I guess, or I suppose you could also argue it's an E since you do still get an award. Depends how you look at it.

Candidates can get a grade C at certain science GCSE papers by getting 20 marks out of 60 - just 33.3%. It isn't unusual at A level either to need very few raw marks to get a 'reasonable' result. Marking is more complicated that just 'needing a majority'

Yeah I agree about the inflation - it's not something I've ever considered before really. All I know from my parents is that when they were at university-level age, 'barely anyone' went as it wasn't as accessible as it is now.

70% = 1st
60% = 2:1
50% = 2:2.

Why is there an option to award someone with a degree when they don't pass at least half of it to the required standard?

Is a 3rd class degree now outdated? Should we look into 80% + as a 1:1 and 70% as a 1:2 etc. It's an interesting point for debate I think.

Why do you pick 50%? That's just completely arbitrary. There are plenty of instances where you're trying to achieve something really hard so to be successful in 30%, 20% or lower is a great achievement. You're just picking random numbers.

We should just release the exact number to the employer, why bother with grades. But if you are going to have grades, you need to at least have a bit of differentiation - no individual grade should contain more than say 25% of the population.

But its all kind of meaningless without some way to compare grades from different unis, which is completely lacking at the moment. As long as you have unis like Surrey trying to give out 50% firsts, the whole system is just a joke and barely worth paying attention to.

If only employers realised that.

Don't really understand your initial point.

Fair enough I think I'm getting a little mixed up in my working here. I still don't understand why someone who does not meet the requirements of that level and standard of academic study for the majority (i.e. 60% fail) should get a degree though. I feel it devalues it.

At Masters level, there's pass, merit, distinction. Anything below a pass leads to a certificate. I know this doesn't equally translate to a 2:2, 2:1, 1st but in the eyes of graduate entry jobs a 2:2 seems to be the 'pass' equivalent for job consideration in a lot of fields.

Wow, surely that highlights wider problems? Should exam boards be allowed to adapt their grade boundaries each year? How is it possible for anyone to track actual student improvement or highlight schools that are not teaching to a sufficient standard?

Don't forget, at GCSE level there are pre determined statistics for the percentage of pupils in each cohort who can achieve in certain grade brackets (8-9 etc.) and is closely linked to SAT results. At degree level - as far as im aware - this isn't the case and grades are simply what a person scores. Boundaries aren't moved, if you get 70% you get a first and that's regardless of whether 90% of others on that course get 70% above too.

Why is there an option to award someone with a degree when they don't pass at least half of it to the required standard?

Is a 3rd class degree now outdated? Should we look into 80% + as a 1:1 and 70% as a 1:2 etc. It's an interesting point for debate I think.

Thank you for confirming you are ignorant on how marking works in the UK

as NQF6 a piece of work ( that isn't either an entirely equation based maths paper or a multiple- guess exam ) that gets 100% is a peice of work that is is worthy of publication as it stands.

this is not the USA .